World View & Market Commentary. Forest first; Trees second. Focused on Real & Knowable facts that filter through the "experts" fluff and media hyperbole. Where we've been, what the future may hold and developing a better way forward.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

The markets were spiking into the top of the hour, then data released as follows:

The Redbook showed same store sales for last week were down strongly, minus 1.3%, and that conflicts with earlier ISCS data, this report is much weaker.

Non-manufacturing ISM was 40.6 in December, up from 37.3, and in line with forecasts.

Factory orders in November fell twice as much as forecast, falling 2.4% during the month.

Home sales plunged more than expected in November, again, falling another 4% when a drop of only .7% was forecast.

See, the surprise was to the down side. When the market begins to overextend, some piece of reality always seems to get in the way, but in this case it’s mainly technical.

Below is a TOS chart that shows DOW futures on the left and S&P futures on the right. Note the sharp reversal right on the release of all that data. It’ll be interesting to see what the rest of the day brings, I did get a little bit short a couple of issues on this morning’s spike, HOG being one, we’ll see how that works out…

The VIX had fallen down to 37, but has jumped right back to 40. The bond market continues its correction, and gold is lower.